


horrifically embarrassing

by ItWasANecessaryTragedy



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Adorable Sherlock, Banter, Fluff, Gen, Hugs, Humour, I'm British, Is this enough tags?, John is a little boy really, Mysterious Sherlock, Pranks, Sherlock's phone - Freeform, Sleeping Sherlock, Squinty Johnlock I guess, The skull - Freeform, blackmail sort-of, ok I'm done, they hug for once, though I prefer to call this one friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-04
Updated: 2018-07-04
Packaged: 2019-06-05 05:32:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15163754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ItWasANecessaryTragedy/pseuds/ItWasANecessaryTragedy
Summary: “John, I find this very aggravating.” Sherlock said solemnly, as if it made any difference to John’s amusement.“Really.” John murmured, opening up Sherlock’s contacts. In all honesty, he expected there only to be a few names, ten at most. The two hundred and six that he actually saw made his eyes pop.“Who on earth is Roger Aardvale?”“He does hacking work for me.”“Typical. And Bailey Andrews?”“Homeless network.”“Okay. And Susan Booton?”“She is the joint owner of our castle.”“Right. Wait, what?”





	horrifically embarrassing

It was late, and the moonlight was drifting through the window in 221B like smoke. It highlighted Sherlock’s sprawled figure as he lay on the floor. He had a blue lighter in one hand, cuddling it like a child against his chest. Squidged in between the lighter and his chest was a photograph taken out of its frame that John immediately recognised.

It was a photograph of contention between the two of them- when Sherlock found out John had it the day before, he'd demanded it be destroyed. It showed Sherlock in a similar position after having crashed post-case style, head resting on that cursed deerstalker hat at the top of the stairs in 221B. John had come up the stairs with a bunch of shopping bags and nearly tripped over the dolt. As soon as he’d seen the opportunity, John had covertly and rather gleefully taken several photos. He'd framed his favourite, and then he had hidden it in his drawers where he would see it and have a laugh every time he reached for his socks. 

Unfortunately, Sherlock had taken it upon himself two weeks later to index John’s sock drawer the next time John went out to do the shopping and had waited, irate, for John to return. John had to admit he’d felt embarrassed but also determined to keep the photo around.The following argument had led to a compromise that as long as John kept it to himself and never showed anyone else, then it was fine.

Obviously Sherlock had changed his mind over the course of the day. John stopped and stared for a moment, concerned. He was trying not to come to any obvious conclusions.

One of Sherlock’s legs was up on his armchair, the other underneath, and his other arm was up as if he had thrown it in the air to celebrate, and then overbalanced, before deciding he was too tired to bother getting up again. Which was probably not far from the truth.

It was post-case after all, and so the Great Git probably hadn't slept for a few days despite John’s nagging. He had a tendency to collapse into unconsciousness with little regard to his surroundings.

John silently took the picture and the lighter from Sherlock’s hands, careful not to disturb, and placed the picture delicately back on the mantelpiece, and the lighter less delicately on Sherlock’s laptop.

John turned around, about to do that exasperated but overall fond shout of Sherlock’s name to wake him up. Sherlock coveted that for some reason, probably because he found it amusing that John thought his eccentricities exasperating rather than outright annoying (which was only true the majority of the time).

Then he noticed something that made his heart start pounding very hard, and his eyes widen in shock. John could hardly believe what he was seeing. Surely not…

Sherlock’s phone was unlocked, and casually placed in the mouth of the skull for some reason, just simply begging to be tampered with. He never left it unlocked or unguarded. This had to be a test. John glanced over to Sherlock as if the man was telepathic and John had set off some internal alarm inside him by thinking such a thing.

Sherlock didn't stir however, eyelashes still casting long shadows over his pale cheekbones like a character in a Victorian romance novel. It was almost ridiculous.

John tiptoed towards the mantelpiece, and placed his hand on the phone, beginning to carefully pry it out from between the teeth. The teeth made a loud clicking sound when the phone was removed fully, and Sherlock's head shot up like a sleeping cat hearing a mouse scurry by. He seemed to tumble down from the armchair, eyes bleary.

“Jawn?”

John swore that Sherlock had a sixth sense when it came to the skull. He always seemed to know when it was touched or talked to or moved at all. Not that long ago, John had begun talking to it one day when he was home alone and Rosie was out with Mrs Hudson, just for the sake of creating some noise (and maybe to see why the hell Sherlock liked the skull so much). 

Sherlock had come in, about ten minutes after John had last said anything, given John a shrewd look, and muttered under his breath “And he was insulted when I told him that I talked when he was away.” Then more loudly “Hypocrisy is the bane of the modern world, wouldn’t you agree, Yorrick?” before storming off in a self-satisfying dramatic exit.

“What are you doin’...” Sherlock widened his eyes, and blinked slowly, and John could basically see him come back online.

“John. Put that back.” Sherlock looked at the skull as if it had personally betrayed him.

“Mm. No.”

“Excuse me?” Sherlock’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “Why are you back already? Why aren’t you with Gerald?”

“I know you know his name is Greg, Sherlock. I’ve heard you call him it when you're in your mind palace.” 

Sherlock didn't respond, just flattened his lips.

“We decided to bail early because we were both tired.”

Sherlock eyed him, and John resisted the urge to roll his.

“A woman kissed you. And you didn't like it. You had to help out someone bleeding, I can tell. Why on earth you feel the need when you could have had a lovely night getting sloshed like you average people go to pubs to do, I will never know. Wait, it wasn't a woman, was it? And the man was almost certainly intoxicated and very handsy. You punched him when he wouldn't let you go, and then treated the injury you caused. Funny. You are a typical paradox, Hamish. I assume George had to deal with the aftermath.”

John gaped at him, and then shut his mouth with a snap. “There is so much wrong with what you just said. Mostly, Hamish. I don't like that.”

Sherlock smiled innocently. “I will never call you it again, if you would kindly hand my phone over.”

The man stood up, all six feet of skinny limbs, working in his usual mesmerising coordination, but stumbling slightly as his one leg almost buckled from the prolonged awkward positioning, and he scowled.

John looked at Sherlock then the phone, and then Sherlock again.

“No deal.” And then John bolted for his room, fast as a racing dog. Unfortunately, Sherlock had always been faster, but John had the advantage of planning, slamming the flat door behind him as he charged up the stairs. The sound of Sherlock thumping into it would give him glee for days. Cackling, he shut his room door, leaning against it with a wheeze of laughter. 

“John!” Sherlock leapt up the steps, stopping and battering on John’s door.

“John! Open this door right now.” 

“I’m just curious. This is payback for all the times you’ve snooped on my laptop.”

“If you don't want me to look, you should secure it better.” Sherlock retorted.

“Ditto to you, then.”

John could hear the death glare like it was a physical being coming into the room.

John was genuinely curious. Sherlock was such a private man, that even after the nearly eight years (six if you minused the hiatus) of their friendship, there was a lot John didn't know about him. One of those things would be who he texted all the time, since his phone was like another limb for Sherlock; he was constantly using it but never for a reason John could discern.

Ignoring Sherlock's grumbling from outside, John began looking through the apps Sherlock had downloaded, which included Sudoku and various other more complicated number puzzles, (which vaguely surprised John, since he would have thought Sherlock deemed those beneath him), a suspicious app the name of which was literally code and John thought best not to look, several social media apps used to deceive suspects and witnesses, and interestingly, Angry Birds. John huffed out a laugh of incredulity, that Sherlock heard.

“The Angry Birds app is an experiment John. On catharsis. You thought it best I don't shoot your gun at the wall anymore, so I shoot cartoon birds instead. It is perfectly logical. If you mock me for it, I will steal your gun back.”

John scoffed. “As if you could find it.”

“Missing brick, fireplace, fourth brick from the left, five up, hidden by a pathetic piece of kindling.” He didn't miss a beat.

John’s head snapped up. “What?”

“I get bored, John. Very. And besides I used to hide cocaine there. Now I keep it… Nowhere. Because I don't have any. In the flat. Or indeed out of the flat.”

“Right.” John said slowly.

“Open the door!”

“I’m not finished.” 

Sherlock started pushing it with vigour and John struggled to keep it shut against Sherlock’s entire bodily strength. Quickly John leapt to his bed and scrambled to the other side of it, Sherlock nearly collapsing into the room. Sherlock raced around the bed, but John raced round the other way, so that they were both at opposite sides of the bed at all times.

“John, I find this very aggravating.” Sherlock said solemnly, as if it made any difference to John’s amusement.

“Really.” John murmured, opening up Sherlock’s contacts. In all honesty, he expected there only to be a few names, ten at most. The two hundred and six that he actually saw made his eyes pop. 

“Who on earth is Roger Aardvale?”

“He does hacking work for me.”

“Typical. And Bailey Andrews?”

“Homeless network.”

“Okay. And Susan Booton?”

“She is the joint owner of our castle.”

“Right. Wait, what?”

“Yes, dreadful business, my uncle died and left it to me, purely out of spite; I called its cold draftiness incompatible with brain work and said I positively detested it.” Sherlock sighed as if the world were on his shoulders. “He was a petty man. So I gave half of it to Ms Booton as a reward for a particularly troublesome hot dog she’d procured for me, and she now lives there.”

“Hot dog?”

“Long story.”

“You know what, I don't want to know. Why on earth do you have a contact for the Microbial Growth for Worldwide Infection Centre?”

“I had my darker days, John.”

Sherlock then lunged across the bed like a viper, and John gasped, and although not being anywhere close to a giggling man, almost certainly let out something similar as Sherlock’s fingers brushed his wrist before John twisted out of the way. This caused Sherlock to fall on the bed and the man chuckled darkly.

“John Hamish Watson, you will regret this very much.”

“I don't think so.” John sang, sprinting to the door with Sherlock close behind him.

“You don't think at all, there’s a difference.” Sherlock snarled from behind John, as they pounded down the stairs.

“This is juvenile!” Sherlock called.

John galloped into the kitchen, chuckling the whole way. He paused to catch his breath, unfortunately not as fit as he was in his younger days, and scrolled through some more of the contacts.

“Cannibal? You have a contact named Cannibal. What the hell-”

Sherlock slammed into him from behind, grappling him for the phone.

“Give...it…” Sherlock had an arm round John’s neck, and a long leg trying to trip him up. However John held the phone just out of reach, gawping at some of the names.

“Tom Hiddleston? How on earth ...do you know him? ...Kate Middleton?... Bloody hell… you said... you didn't know ...who she was!”

“Deleted!” Sherlock growled breathlessly.

“And yet...not... from your ...contacts… I deduce-”

“You don't deduce... anything... at all. Give it... to me!”

Suddenly, perhaps realising it was a lost cause, Sherlock pulled back, a strange glint in his eye. He quickly dove for the sleeping Sherlock picture from earlier, and started looking desperately around for something. John watched, perplexed.

“What are you doing?” John asked in consternation.

Sherlock then saw the lighter and held both objects up in front of John. He flicked the lighter on and held the flame close to the corner of the photograph. 

“Give me my phone or I burn this.” Sherlock smirked. John stared, trying to hide his horror.

“Who says I care what you do with that?”

“Because you took them from me while I was sleeping, knowing what I had been about to do, and separated them to different corners of the room. And your hand just clenched.”

“I could just take another one of you sleeping and frame it.”

Sherlock grimaced. “I will not allow it. Besides you don't want to, do you?” He frowned, and the flame grew ever nearer. “You have some kind of sentimental-” the disgust here was palpable- “attachment to it.”

John’s hands were itching. The flame was millimetres away. The corner of the paper started to curl and go black.

“Okay, fine, stop!” John shouted, pressing the phone into Sherlock’s hand, and snatching the photograph away. He checked it for damage, heart pounding.

Sherlock looked on smugly, locking his phone. “I don’t understand why you like it so much. In my opinion, it is an horrifically embarrassing photograph.”

He said it in a bored tone, but there was something insecure that John couldn't pin down in his voice. John looked up at him, and he was nonchalantly scrolling through his phone, eyes refusing to meet John’s.

“Because it’s you, and it's you doing a very you kind of thing to do, and it makes me happy to see.”

Sherlock frowned. “That’s not all, is it?”  
John fidgeted with the sleeve of his beige jumper that Sherlock had always claimed to detest but John knew he secretly loved.

“I never had any photos of you before. Not personal ones. When you left. None at all.”

John looked from his sleeve at Sherlock’s impassive face. He was always a blank, and that was the problem.

“It was a big regret of mine. The press photos aren’t you. They are Public Sherlock. This-” John waved the photo in front of Sherlock’s face. “This is undoubtedly you.”

“I’m afraid I don’t understand.” Sherlock said, and he sounded almost nervous.

“That's okay. I wouldn't expect you to.” John watched Sherlock finger his phone and an overwhelming warm rush of fondness overcame him.

He leaned forward and gave Sherlock a hug, wrapping his arms around him as if he were a teddy bear. They never did this, which was something John wanted to change. Sherlock, shocked, stood still for a moment before wrapping his arms round John. He was surprisingly good at hugging.

“I’m glad you’re alive. I never said it to you.”

Sherlock’s brain appeared to go into meltdown. “Oh. Um. Well. John. I am... That is...I mean...I… Am glad you are alive also.” The stumbling of his words in embarrassment was better music to John’s ears than the thump of Sherlock on door from earlier. “Apart from when you steal my things. I’ll have you know I have all my contacts in my mind palace, including the Microbial Growth for Worldwide Infection Centre, so I suggest you not repeat this.”

“Uh, of course! Wouldn't dream of it.” John was already visualising how he could twist the phone out of Sherlock’s hands, now that the photo was safe and sound.

“I just have one question.”

“...Fine.”

“Why the bloody hell do you have a contact named Cannibal in your phone?”

Sherlock shifted uncomfortably. “You said you didn't want to know about the hot dog, John.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I appreciate you! Leave a Kudos if you liked it. I wrote this a while ago but never edited it, and I don't know how I feel about it but there's no harm in putting it out into the world. Please give me a review, I really want to improve my writing. Thanks again!!


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